DLA Piper

Turning strategies into action

The rapid growth of DLA Piper Rudnick Gray Cary (now DLA Piper) to one of the world’s largest firms began years ago with the merger of Piper & Marbury, a Baltimore-based white-shoe firm with an unlikely mate, Rudnick & Wolfe, a Chicago-based real estate-focused firm. But the strong trust between the two managing partners guaranteed the merger’s success.

Two years after the marriage, the merger agreement called for an abbreviated name. And both the international and external markets wanted more information about this “new” national player. We were waiting for market research to be completed, but there was no time to lose, so we were asked to create an interim logo and interim brochure. We inherited Piper’s school colors—lemon yellow and blue. The interim logo was reduced to blue. The brochure cover carried the familiar colors, but the inside broke free. Clients consistently told us that working with Piper was refreshingly different, so we designed every spread to be refreshingly different. The result is a very unusual law firm brochure. And that got everything else started.

One spread in the brochure showed a toolbox, where we detailed the list of practice areas offered by the firm. That image led us to the toolbox advertising campaign—which led to a delightful solution for the recruiting package. The toolbox theme was extended to a series of images that isolate tools in a monumental way. The purpose of the tool (to hammer, to level, to measure) is the inspiration for the copy line adjacent to the tool.

Since that first foray into growth, the firm has completed two substantial mergers since—with the large, multi-officed London-based DLA and with the California Silicon Valley firm, Gray Cary.